Media report on windstorm challenge winners

A team of students from Spruce Mountain High School won first place in the Kleinschmidt Windstorm Challenge, and a team from Orono High School won first in the 10th annual Maine Wind Blade Challenge at the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center on May 18, Turner Publishing reported. More than 350 middle and high school students from around the state competed in the windstorm challenge to design and build a scale model of a floating wind turbine platform, test it in the center’s simulation facilities, and present their project to a panel of judges. The first-place winners were offered a $20,000 internship at the center if they enroll at UMaine. “We’re confident that some of Maine’s best future engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs were here today, and our goal is to inspire them to create opportunities in our state,” Habib Dagher, executive director of the UMaine Composites Center, told Turner Publishing. The Sun Journal also reported on Spruce Mountain High School’s win and The County reported that in the middle school division, the Caribou Middle School Wave Runners were tops, Brewer Community School’s Dream Team took second and Caribou Middle School’s Northern Breeze placed third.